shoelaces
by hiyoris-scarf
Summary: Sara Rockbell and her daughter visit the family on the hilltop.


For the Edwin Week 2016 prompt, "childhood." Cross-posted on tumblr and AO3.

* * *

Your two sons are playing outside when you see a tiny, solitary figure standing at the edge of the yard. You walk out, still rubbing your chapped hands on your apron, to see who the small stranger is.

"Hello there!" you call.

Both boys look up from their frolicking, noticing for the first time that they are being watched. The stranger is a little girl, and you realize you've actually seen her a few times before. You haven't really been settled here long enough to get on speaking terms with the neighbors, but you're sure this is the daughter of the Rockbell doctors. They've smiled at you a few times in passing, and you remember now that this same little blonde girl was always hanging from her mother's elbow.

"I'm Winry," she says, by way of greeting.

She doesn't step any closer to you, and her eyes are huge. She looks like she's not sure how she ended up in your yard all alone, and now with two strange boys staring back at her. You grin at her, brushing your hands clean and extending one toward her in greeting.

"Hello Winry. Are you here all by yourself?"

"No, she's not!" says a woman's voice.

The little girl's mother appears over the top of the hill, red-faced and pushing her yellow hair up out of her eyes.

"You live on quite the hill! Winry is much better at running up it than I am."

She works on catching her breath, and Winry looks from you, to Ed and Al, to her mother, and back again. Once the woman is able to speak, she meets your eyes and smiles widely.

"We thought we'd come introduce ourselves. If we're neighbors, we should really be friends!"

She approaches you, with Winry shadowing her, and stretches out her hand.

"I'm Sara Rockbell."

You shake hands, and feel the warmth and steadiness of hers that, like her entire presence, sheds friendliness.

You could use a friend.

"I'm Trisha Elric."

Sara Rockbell smiles brightly. She doesn't ask where Mr. Elric is.

"Winry, why don't you say hello?" she asks her daughter.

Winry stays solidly by her mother's side, but she keeps twisting her neck to look around at Ed and Al. The boys are playing again, but much less enthusiastically. Al keeps tripping over his shoelaces as the newcomers distract him, and Ed has that look on his face that he gets whenever he tries too hard to impress someone. He ends up looking like a miniature version of his father.

"Edward, Alphonse, come here."

You call to them, and Al trips again. He bounces up, unembarrassed, and rockets to your side. Ed takes a little bit longer, pausing to kick a pebble. He's still doing a credible job of pretending the Rockbells aren't anywhere in the vicinity.

"Show Winry what you were playing! I'm sure she'd like to see."

Sara gives her daughter an encouraging nudge when Winry glances up, unsure. At once, Al jumps at the opportunity to make a new friend, and you realize, sadly, that even though he's so small, he's already experienced too much loneliness.

"Yeah, come play with us, Winny!" he exclaims, stumbling over the consonants in her name.

"Win-ry," you correct, softly, in his ear.

"Rin-ry!"

Winry giggles, then slaps a hand over her mouth.

"Sorry," she whispers through her fingers, still smiling.

You return the smile, and realize that Ed still hasn't meandered his way over yet. He's stopped about a yard away, and is resolutely staring at his shoes. As Al and Winry run off to the other end of the yard in an impromptu game of tag, supervised by Sara, you crouch down in front of your older son.

"Little man, what's the matter?"

Ed shrugs.

"Nothing."

Ed got so much from _him_ , you think, caught between a laugh and a groan.

Al and Winry stop at the far edge of the yard, and Al waves at Ed to come join them. You turn back to him.

"See Ed? Al's got a new friend. Why don't you go over and play a game with them?"

"But—"

His eyebrows pull together in concern as Al starts racing across the yard again—and promptly faceplants. Then, the serious, too-adult expression on his face softens as he hears Winry's kind-hearted laughter.

"Your shoe's untied!" she exclaims, and bends down in front of Al to fix it. From your vantage point, you can see that the laces are balled up together in a tangled knot. Winry regards the mess of strings with confusion.

"Ah, Al, why do you always mess up your shoelaces?" Ed laments, finally approaching the two of them and sitting down to offer his services. Al starts picking grass and doesn't pay attention as Ed fixes his shoelaces, but Winry watches closely.

"Do you always tie his shoes for him?" she asks, innocently.

Ed snorts.

"No, he wants to do them himself. But then this usually happens, and he starts tripping over them, so I have to fix them all the time."

Winry bends down in front of Al's other shoe and starts working on it, and soon the three of them are tumbling around the front yard as comfortably as if they've known each other since birth.

You and Sara Rockbell bring cups of tea out to the yard as Ed and Winry erupt into what looks like the first of many well-meaning arguments. This one is over whether it would be more fun to be able to fly, or to have an indestructible body.

"You wouldn't ever have to be scared, _ever_ , of _anything_ ," Ed insists, marching up to her and planting his fists on his hips, shoulders thrown wide.

"Yeah, well if you could _fly_ , you could just fly away from whatever was scaring you," Winry retorts quickly, sticking her tongue out when Ed turns away.

"Or you could bite it," Al interjects, pondering a fistful of grass and the likelihood of it being delicious.

After this enigmatic comment, Ed and Winry reach a temporary truce, which falls to pieces dramatically within the next ten minutes.

"Those two might never agree on anything," Sara says, laughing into her tea.

Right now, both of them have arrived at an agreement again, and are busy making it possible for Al to reach the lowest tree branch and safely hang from it. Winry has pulled the tip of the branch down so Al's toes aren't too far off the ground, while Ed lifts his brother up so his small hands can close around the smooth branch.

"They might not," you agree, not taking your eyes off them. "But it looks like they can find ways to help each other."


End file.
